


The Weather Is Here

by morganya



Category: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-02-26
Updated: 2004-02-26
Packaged: 2017-10-10 13:40:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganya/pseuds/morganya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carson doesn't want to answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Weather Is Here

**Author's Note:**

> The following songs provided a writing soundtrack: Bone Thugs-N-Harmony - Tha Crossroads, Ani Difranco - Both Hands, eels - Woman Driving, Man Sleeping, EBTG - Single, Freedy Johnston - Can't Sink This Town, Vertical Horizon - Best I Ever Had.

  
Carson imagines that the windows are draped in velvet whenever he rides in a taxi, as though it's a movie star's chariot, as though he's Greta Garbo in sunglasses, considering the future in artificial darkness. It makes reality just that much more cinematic.

The cab interior has postcards pasted all over it, which must be a violation of one code or another, but far be it from him to say anything. They've been put up with sticky tape; the paper has gone frayed and ripped at the corners. He wonders if they're used postcards, sent, God knows why, to a taxicab in New York City from Aruba or Maui or Paris with cute little catchphrases scrawled on the back. _The weather is beautiful. Wish you were here._

"My, these are charming," Carson says to the cab driver. "Did you accidentally drive through a tourist kiosk?"

"I'm sorry?" The driver turns around and blinks at him.

"Never mind," Carson says.

"Where do you want to go?"

He gives his address. The driver harrumphs and focuses on the road. Carson adjusts his sunglasses, staring at the postcard closest to him, the sunny beach, the palm trees, the paper creases running through the smiling, artfully posed couple's faces.

*****

Carson sits in the alcove of Kyan's apartment, flicking cigarette ash out of the window. Kyan keeps all of his windows open all the time, defying bad weather and burglars. He also has a propensity to kick the covers off the bed when he sleeps; right now the sheets are twisted around his right ankle, his arms flung out to the sides. He looks like a debauched god. Carson studies the rise and fall of his chest, the curve of his hip. The pillowcase has left marks across Kyan's cheekbone. Carson wants to smooth them out, wipe the sweat from the hollows of his throat, pick the blankets up and tuck him back in so he won't get cold.

He looks away. Best not to wake Kyan up by staring at him. He crushes the cigarette out and flicks his hair out of his face. It feels greasy and dry all at the same time: too much product, too much exposure to the elements. _Look at yourself._ He rests his knuckles on the window ledge, pressing his back into the wall.

"You pose more than anybody I've ever met," Kyan says, voice creaky with sleep.

Carson turns his head. "Of course. Always ready for my closeup. Okay, either you fell on a waffle iron or a man in a very tiny car drove over your face."

"Huh?" Kyan touches his face, strokes the grooves on his cheek. "Oh. _Dude._"

"The distressed look. I like it. Foxy." Carson rises, hops back onto the bed and straddles Kyan's hips. He thinks he maybe shouldn't have done that; it's not an angle he really wants Kyan to have a chance to study, but it's already happened and it's too late to move without looking weird. Kyan massages tiny circles on his thigh.

He leans down, bracing himself on his right elbow, his shoulder dipping against Kyan's shoulder, Kyan's face upturned to his, mouth parting in a smile, slightly sour morning breath tempered with mint. He throws his weight against Carson, knocking him off balance, rolling him over onto his back. His leg is between Carson's knees.

Carson bites into his lip to keep himself from speaking. Kyan strokes Carson's temple, his mouth closed over Carson's Adam's apple, other hand wrapped around Carson's wrist. Carson feels light fingertips across his face (_Great face for radio..._) and much as he wants to lie still, he shakes his wrist free, brings Kyan's head up and crushes his lips to that perfect mouth, pushing against him to try to bring him back down.

Kyan, laughing, shrugs free of him, pushing against his shoulder with one hand. Carson, joins in belatedly, tries to trap his leg. Kyan slips away and thwaps him softly with a pillow.

"Too much, too soon, my friend," Kyan says and tousles his hair. "Man. What are you using in this?"

Carson falls back against the headboard, pressing the back of one hand to his forehead. "Oh, I'll never be a wrestler. Not that I'd want to be. There's a little too much Spandex in that job market. Very non-breathable."

"And a lot of mullets."

"Mullets galore."

Kyan leans back. "Want coffee? I'm gonna go take a shower."

"I think I'm going to motor." Carson gets up and fixes his hair. Getting dressed is next on the agenda.

"Okay." Kyan swings his legs over the side of the bed. "You know what'd be cool? Come out here on Friday or Saturday, we'll see a movie, go to dinner or something."

"Can we pick out a puppy, too?" Carson says, shrugging himself into his shirt. "Fido Kressley-Douglas? Or do you want your name to come first? I'm not fussy."

"Carson..." Kyan says, laughing.

Carson tilts Kyan's chin up, strokes his hair as he kisses him goodbye. "Don't waste your cash on me." He reaches for his pants. "And close a couple of windows while you're at it, you're going to catch pneumonia."

*****

Carson stares past the back of the cab driver's head. Beyond the windshield, Times Square's billboards rush by his peripheral vision, neon signs advertising toothpastes and eyeliners and concealers.

"What happened to the good old days?" Carson asks the driver's head. He was planning on keeping silent and trying to look glamorous, one hand on his jaw, one hand resting languidly on the seat, but now he's bored and nervous and he needs to talk to someone. "Remember? When there were hookers and trannies on every corner?"

"What?"

"This isn't exactly scintillating repartee," Carson says, and goes quiet again, letting the electronic advertisements batter his shaded eyes.

*****

The show sends them out on press junkets every so often, just to keep them in the public consciousness. Sometimes it's all of them as a group, sometimes it's Carson and Ted, or Kyan and Carson, and sometimes the Daves come along with them, and sometimes it's just one-on-one. Carson usually winds up doing most of the talking, no matter who is with him.

Kyan accuses him of pulling a dumb blonde act with the press, but there's more to it than that. If he talks fast enough, throws out enough wisecracks, the reporters go off their guard, overwhelmed by the ratatattat of words. They forget to ask the questions he doesn't want to answer.

Sometimes he gets a sharp one, one who's not put off by the constant movement, and he hears this: _Tell me about yourself..._

It's hard for him not to pause at that. Usually he can think of something funny and make it go away. Or he can lie.

He's good at that.

*****

The cab driver gets to his apartment building. Carson tips him and says, "Invest in a thesaurus, okay, lamb chop?" He doesn't wait to hear the response. He swipes one of the less heavily taped postcards from the cab interior on his way out.

He kicks his apartment door shut behind him and studies the postcard, but it tore while he was ripping it off the seat and the image is unrecognizable. If there was any writing on it, it has disappeared. He drops the scraps of paper into the wastebasket; they scatter like confetti.

*****

In Kyan's bed, just after they turn the lights out, when Kyan bites into his shoulder and tries not to moan, when Kyan kisses along his jaw line, when Kyan says, "_Please..._" is the time when Carson can close his eyes and pretend he's beautiful too.


End file.
